The hunt for Caster’s Master continues as Rin and Shirou come across some interesting details on someone near to Issei. A person that frequents the Ryuudou Temple and has recently introduced a fiance.

Synopsis
After a very nightmarish dream of suffering and death, Rin seems to have finally gotten a bit more revealed about her Servant Archer. Though it remains unclear as to his identity. Despite this newfound knowledge, things between her and Archer remain unstable when he continues to question her recent decisions. Partnering with Shirou over Caster. Even with his remarks, Rin seems unwilling to compromise her decision.

Back at school, Shirou gets in a discussion with Issei about how he knows one of the school teachers named Kuzuki. Turns out Kuzuki is like a big brother to Issei and has been staying at the temple for three years now. After Rin barges in after overhearing this, she manages to get out an important piece of information. Kuzuki has recently brought in a woman who is said to be his fiance.

Rin assumes this new fiance would be Caster, and that Kuzuki is in fact her Master. In response to this, Shirou and Rin cook up a plan to test Kuzuki as he travels home after school. Though the results are a bit more than they bargain for.

Thoughts
A very epic episode with a nice mix of character developments and build up to a great combat sequence. While I was a bit troubled by one element of the episode, it didn’t affect the overall enjoyment that had me engaged the whole time.

Once again, we got a bit of insight into Rin’s struggle with Archer, which continues to be the more interesting part of this arc of Fate/stay. Even though I was a little saddened at the tease in her vision of how he became a Heroic Spirit, it’s becoming obvious throughout the episode that she’s keeping a lot of information to herself.

The battle itself was very epic in scale, which was nice to see coming out of a very quiet episode 9. The visual design and work put into this entire scene was amazing and making me crave the moment I can throw my wallet at the screen when it’s released on Blu-ray. Even if it will cost an arm and a leg, you just have to know this wasn’t a budget job. The attention to detail in things like the snow blowing away at Caster’s landing just scream of love and care.

While I understand that Kuzuki has a hidden set of talents and Saber was caught off guard, the fact that he so easily outclassed Saber seems a bit far-fetched. That’s not to say that Masters are without the ability to fight, or that they can’t outsmart Servants, having a raw power difference was a bit of a hard pill to swallow. Though I guess we can just stick with Rin’s logic behind it.

That aside, I loved seeing Shirou come to learn how to manifest weapons with his trace skill. Even more shocking was to see him use his mimicking of Archer to an extent that he’s able to attack so feverishly. While his progression has been great, the level that he reached at this point was great to see. Hopefully no longer a push over.

Going forward, I hope we get more insight into Kuzuki and Caster’s relationship. They had quite a bit of showing in the original Fate/stay night, but I’m hoping with UBW we’ll get to see more. Something that was unfortunately not touched at all in the movie.

Episode 10: The Fifth Contractor

THUMBS UP!

IMPRESSIONS VERDICT:
Amazing

Pros:

Kuzuki was epic

Great combat sequences

Amazing visuals and detail

Rin’s struggle with Archer

Archer’s story unfolding

Cons:

Saber outclassed seemed farfetched

Impressions are based on a single episode and don’t necessarily reflect the series as a whole. Unless dropped, we will continue to give updates on thoughts and impressions of the series as time goes by.

Co-Founder of OtakuSpirit.com and Co-Host of the OtakuSpirit Animecast. A huge fan of anime since the early 1990s, consuming over 1200 shows. Outside of Otaku Spirit, he has been a judge for the Anime Awards and aided in reviewing titles for some publishers. While he's late to the collecting scene, he's found a lot of joy in filling his DVD/Blu-ray collection as well as collecting figures. Sharing this joy, he posts unboxing and feature videos on anime goods to YouTube.

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